16 November 2013

The Pressure to Say or Do Something

Two nights ago I was involved in a residence hall activity where I, the Buddhist, along with two of my colleagues, both Christian, but one from India so he spoke on Hinduism, had an hour with the students. We were each invited to talk for about 15 mins about the respective traditions, and then a Q&A followed.

It was fine enough, but I always leave such events with a bad taste in my mouth. "If you say, 'Buddha, wash you mouth out three times" makes such increasing sense to me. "Buddha" indeed…!

Would that I never had to talk about this practice again. Would that henceforth and forever I could just say, "Look!" and let that be enough and more than enough. Even better: to just smile Mahākāshyapa's smile and leave it at that!